El Paso Bishop Seitz and Gov. Rick Perry to appear on national TV

El Paso Catholic Bishop Mark Seitz and Gov. Rick Perry are scheduled to appear on a national ABC News program to discuss the pressing issue of illegal immigration by Central American families and unaccompanied children.

The news program "This Week," which focuses on political news and features roundtable panel debates, will air at 9 a.m. Sunday.

"I appreciate any opportunity to share the church's point of view on this issue and to help people understand a little bit more clearly some of the realities that these children are facing as they come here," Seitz said.

Seitz testified on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on June 25 about unaccompanied children and families that are being processed in El Paso and other cities and then released pending court dates.

Officials have said that 52,000 families and unaccompanied minors have been apprehended on the border since October. Many have been flown and bused to El Paso and other cities because the Border Patrol in South Texas is overcrowded.

"I am here to speak with you today about this special population of vulnerable children who are very close to my heart as I have met with many of them, some as young as five years old, while they were being cared for in Catholic Charities facilities in my diocese in El Paso," Seitz said in testimony last month to Judicial Committee of the House of Representatives.

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Seitz asked the committee to take into consideration a report, "USCCB: Mission to Central America: Flight of the Unaccompanied Immigrant Children to the United States," by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that was written after a mission in Central America.

"In addition to ministering to these youth in El Paso, in November 2013, I was privileged to lead a United States Conference of Catholic Bishops delegation traveling to Southern Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to examine and understand the flight of unaccompanied migrating children and youth from the region and stand in solidarity with these children and their families," Seitz said in his testimony.

During his testimony, Seitz said he tried to stress the dangers the children face in their countries.

"I tried to describe how serious that violence is," Seitz said. "I pointed out that the murder rate in Honduras, especially San Pedro Sula, the second largest city there, is higher than any other city in the world. Three countries (that the immigrants are coming from) are in the top five most dangerous countries in the world."

Seitz also presented recommendations based on the mission to the committee. The recommendations include addressing the issue of unaccompanied child migration as a humanitarian crisis requiring cooperation from all branches of the U. S. government, adoption of policies to ensure that unaccompanied immigrant children receive appropriate child welfare services, legal assistance, and access to immigration protection where appropriate, and require that a best interest of the child standard be applied in immigration proceedings governing unaccompanied alien children.

Two other recommendations were to examine root causes driving the immigration influx such as violence, lack of security and a lack of adequate child protection. In addition, the recommendations also include seeking solutions that would enable children to remain in their country safely.

"I recommended, first of all, that they try to see the faces of the children and to exercise the compassion for which our country is so well known (for). That they recognize that the vast majority of the children who are coming are innocent children that are simply fleeing the terrible violence of those countries in Central America," Seitz said.

Perry testified to the House Homeland Security committee in McAllen, Texas, on Thursday. In his testimony, Perry "attributed the waves of young immigrants to a failure to secure the border and recent changes in immigration policy that he says sent a message to Central America that if the children came they would be allowed to stay," according to a report by the Associated Press.

"Allowing them to remain here will only encourage the next group of individuals to undertake this very, very dangerous and life-threatening journey," Perry said in his testimony according to the AP. "And those who come must be sent back to demonstrate in no uncertain terms that risking your lives on the top of those trains and the ways that they are coming here, it's not worth it."

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